Various Other Laika Research
This article shows the behind the scenes going-ons for The Boxtrolls production, and also has some nice quotes from members of the staff.
“Laika is one of the last bastions of tool-using animators all crammed into one place. There are computers, but there are also woodshops and metalshops manned by artists who love the idea of creating sets and props that could only be fabricated by materials Boxtrolls could get their hands on.” - Anthony Stacchi
As you walk through the studio, you’ll see a century’s worth of filmmaking technologies and processes, including techniques that predate cinema to new high-tech items like laser cutters and 3D printers. As Knight puts it, “It’s that fusion, the gumbo of craft and technology that makes this group so unique.”
Pretty much every shot ends up in the film. It’s made one frame at a time. You don’t make any extra frames.
“It’s a physically demanding medium. But it’s also mentally taxing. People don’t often realize that. You have to keep all this information in your head. You have the movement of all these body parts. You have to hit all these marks and make the characters seem to be alive, not mechanical robots.” - Travis Knight
Though each animator’s process is different, they all work from storyboards. They get a brief from the directors, who give them the emotional beats of the scene. Then they do a block, or rehearsal, doing a rough shoot to get the staging right. Then they go through and shoot for real. They end up going through each shot at least twice. Everything is scheduled down to the hour according to the film’s detailed storyboards.
“Andy from Toy Story, the kid who’s nice to his toys, gets along with his mother, he went off to CalArts and then went to work at Pixar. Sid...who tore his toys apart and built creepy things out of them... he grew up, moved to Portland... and came to work at Laika. It’s like off season at Burning Man here. Everyone is a welder.” Anthony Stacchi (rather humourous comparison between company ethos)
“For me, every day was like, ‘What’s today’s crisis going to be?’ It’s constant problem solving.” - Graham Annable
“All animation is an incredibly meticulous process, but stop-motion has its own odd place.” - Graham Annable
http://www.awn.com/animationworld/on-set-laikas-boxtrolls
Below is a rather nice view into something beyond the usual scope of stop motion and computer generated visual wizardry which is employed on films at Laika. This is a pencil test for the credits of The Boxtrolls, which was traditionally animated.
